Nothing but the roar of blood, this glow, this swelling heart
by crackinthecup
Summary: 'A few moments might be spared perhaps,' he breathed, sliding his fingers to the nape of Mairon's neck, gently teasing his nails over the sensitive skin there until Mairon shivered. 'You bear no injury so urgent as to preclude slight indulgence.' X X Efficient service such as Mairon's deserves to be rewarded, and Melkor is a generous lord. Angbang.
**Warnings, just to be on the safe side:** slight mentions of gore and bloodplay, though nothing graphic.

X X

War was raging outside the gates of Angband, and that day malice proved the mightier. The grasses of Ard-galen were smoking in the blood of the Noldor. The peaks of Thangorodrim seemed to thicken with the dark satisfaction of their lord; they seemed to deepen in color, to grow fouler, a black more complete than the night that was rolling over the field. Smoke crackled from each heaving tip, choking the last vestiges of hope the Noldor might have harbored. The stars flickered and died, and in the heart of the mountain the doors to the great hall crunched open.

It was the lieutenant who strode into the hall, brow held aloft, blood pulsing from the slash over his cheekbone. And Melkor smiled, less malevolence than the genuine glow of pride curving over his lips. He smiled to see him proud, to see him bloody: for his hands were marked crimson and the fall of his hair was flaked in red. And if the Vala's smile revealed too sharp a canine, if it gleamed too much like sacrament, then Mairon said no word of it. He knelt as he always had: neck bowed and tense, shivering, joyous; waiting for the graze of charred fingers beneath his chin.

''Their bodies are broken, and so are their swords, my lord. Soon nothing shall remain of them but their blood.'' A quirk of a wince passed over Mairon's face as Melkor's fingers strayed to the gash over his cheekbone; down, smearing blood to the corner of his mouth, and Mairon tasted ash and rust, heady, tectonic. ''We shall be victorious.''

The fingers withdrew, daubing the lightest of touches down his jaw. Mairon could not quite stopper the shiver that poured through him. Indolently, imperiously Melkor draped an arm over the metal armrest of the throne, and for the flitting space of seconds he locked eyes with his lieutenant, smirking to see the brightness there, the battle-lust, the flaming victory.

''Skillfully you have commanded my troops,'' Melkor murmured to him, dark and low, and Mairon heard no more of the life of the fortress, the creaking steps of Valaraukar and the fury of Thangorodrim far above; he heard only the roll of his master's voice, his own heartbeat quivering in his throat. ''Cunningly you have designed their battles, and the blood of my enemies crowns you in triumph. I do not ask you to kneel before me tonight. Have your wounds cleaned; attend to sport rather than duty: for I ask only that you rejoice.''

But the time for revelry, it seemed, was not yet upon them. The great doors screeched open once more. One of the Valaraukar scuffed through the aperture: a captain, helm splattered with gore, axe worn blunt. Mairon was already surging to his feet to meet her, and with a decorous _my lord_ he turned on his heel, taking the steps of the dais as straight-backed as ever. For all the weariness eddying in his muscles not once did Mairon falter, but all the same his master's gaze lingered on him: on the way the flames spitting out of braziers darkened the blood in his hair, seemingly making it flow anew, on the broad cast of his shoulders and the minuscule sway of his hips.

For all his weariness adrenaline still strummed in his veins, making heart thunder and muscle strain. Yet his body could not wholly deny the toll of battle: boiling, volcanic heat and the reek of blood washed over him as soon as he drew close to the captain, striking his body like a mallet, and subtly he leaned his weight against the wall as the captain rumbled her report. Gladness glimmered in his heart to hear her tidings; it was good news, news of retreat, news of carnage and Ard-galen rendered a grassy graveyard.

Brief was the conversation. Mairon bid her make haste, he bid her urge pursuit, and the glow in his chest brightened as he uttered the words: he would secure victory for his lord. The captain lumbered away with a rugged bow to return to the clash of swords, and yet Mairon lingered: there was no harm in pressing himself to the wall just seconds longer, he thought, closing his eyes, focusing on the breath in his lungs. His muscles shrieked at him for a moment of languor; it would not do to traverse the corridors of Angband while violence was still astir within him, while the febrile ecstasy of war still patterned over the inside of his skin. He would wait until he could greet the world with something less like frenzy foaming in his chest, and then he would be on his way: to offer commendation to any soldier he might meet while heading to the infirmary, and then to impart bolstering news to the healers. Yet his lord's presence forestalled all movement. Melkor had advanced quietly, nothing more than the susurrus of a shadow across the flagstones, and before any instinct of his own could crystallize within him, Mairon was propelled further into the wall. Melkor molded a hand to his jawline, leaning in close so their foreheads touched.

''A few moments might be spared perhaps,'' he breathed, sliding his fingers to the nape of Mairon's neck, gently teasing his nails over the sensitive skin there until Mairon shivered. ''You bear no injury so urgent as to preclude slight indulgence.''

There was no space here, or perhaps there was no space between the wall at his back and Melkor's bulk pressing into him. Cool stone, the heartbeat of the mountain, and the smile in his master's voice dripping down his neck. Mairon found that his fingers had strayed upward, had latched to the collar of Melkor's robes and were now toying with it.

He had not expected the gentleness. Melkor kissed him, yes, but his fingers did not knot in his hair to force his head back, to expose his neck to bruises and peeling teeth-marks; they continued to tickle over the back of his neck, easing within his tunic to skim over his shoulder blades. Mairon's own hands slid to Melkor's waist, dragging little furrows outward from his spine. This softness between them, this blanketed warmth, was a new-sprung species, and with the flutter of battle not fully stilled within him, Mairon lacked the patience to explore it. So he let his teeth learn sharpness, let his touch learn savagery; and Melkor allowed it, he permitted it, he did not scold for stinging nails and clashing teeth, for the taste of blood trickling metallic over their tongues.

Instead the Vala slithered a knee between Mairon's thighs until the Maia rocked himself into that pressure, gasping with the flurry of arousal between his hipbones. The fingers that had roamed the expanse of his neck at last scraped into his hair, tightening, yanking; the sound thrumming on Mairon's lips was less discomfort than delight. His head was maneuvered to the side, tendons stretching and neck left bare and beating, wild with the hurtle of blood just beneath the skin.

''You did me proud,'' Melkor honeyed, nipping at the side of his neck. Mairon's hands skirted up to Melkor's skull, fisting in his hair, inviting him closer. And then there were teeth, there was pain sharp enough to bruise, a dizzying stumble into familiar territory: Mairon's head thudded back, cracking into the wall, and the breath in his lungs swelled into a bright moan. Capillaries were mauled beneath his skin. The spot Melkor had just bitten throbbed and pulsed, and Mairon let his eyes drift shut, savoring the agony of it as Melkor darkened the bruise.

''You look glorious, drenched in the blood of my enemies,'' his master husked into his neck; his lips formed the words against the livid bruise there, and it merely served to fuel the ecstasy gilding Mairon's veins.

With a last biting kiss Melkor pulled away. And then he was sinking down upon one knee, and all too eagerly did Mairon grasp his intent, all too readily did desire capsize low in his belly. Charred fingers deftly loosened the laces on Mairon's breeches, and Melkor pressed his palms to the blood stains seeping through the leather—a blessing, a benediction, a hallowing. A few light strokes of his master's palm teased Mairon to full hardness, and unabashedly he rutted his hips forward, he moaned until the sound was taken up in chorus by the vaults spanning the shadowed spaces of the ceiling. Indulgently, in smoke-dark amusement, Melkor chuckled. For brief, bright seconds he squeezed his fingers around his lieutenant's shaft, and Mairon simply crumpled back into the wall.

And then Melkor's tongue was flickering up the underside of his length, and his hips were twitching forward almost of their own accord. Blindly he groped for the back of Melkor's skull, a mewling breath clotting on his lips as the Vala took him down to the back of his throat. Melkor's lips were tight round the very rim of his tip, his tongue was dipping into his slit, and Mairon crushed the tremors in his muscles to the wall. Pleasure thrummed low in his belly as Melkor continued; but it was too soft, too tender; it wasn't jarring enough to jostle the thunder out of his veins. Mairon's touch had shed all tenderness: he tugged the Vala upward by the hair, and once more—Melkor obliged. Mairon parted his lips for his master, tongue sliding against Melkor's, swirling through his own taste.

It was plain what Mairon sought, and Melkor was in a magnanimous mood. Through the kiss Melkor fitted firm hands at Mairon's waist, guiding him around: forehead settled against the wall, breeches tugged downward just beneath the buttocks. A gasping breath fluttered into Mairon's lungs as Melkor's fingers slipped to his entrance. His other arm was slung round his waist, drawing the Maia to his chest; playfully his teeth worried at the lobe of his ear, and as hot breath puffed over his cheek, down his neck, little trembling rills coursed through Mairon. Yet for all his master's fingers were rubbing at his entrance, they made no move to breach him, and Mairon whined with the need clamoring through him, he squirmed back against Melkor's touch. But the teeth lodged at his ear suddenly tightened, and the growl rumbling in Melkor's throat stilled his wriggling. Mairon sloshed back into the wall, a nearly silent whimper wavering on his lips.

''Patience,'' Melkor chided; no anger may have been laced through his tone, but the glede of teasing, wry amusement was unmistakable. His hand left the swell of Mairon's hip to curl over his chin. Blackened fingers slid over Mairon's lips, dragging them open, twisting over his tongue. And Mairon did not think, but acted: out of instinct, spurred by the desire jostling between his hipbones, he sealed his lips around his master's fingers; lightly he bobbed his head, eagerly he settled into an easy cadence.

A small satisfied noise ground in Melkor's throat. He marked his praise in shivering little kisses over the nape of Mairon's neck, but not long did he allow Mairon his pleasure. All too soon he pulled his fingers free; he reached up to tease the cut over the Maia's cheekbone, smearing the baseness of it all down his chin, trailing blood and saliva down the side of his neck. Slick fingers probed at the Maia's entrance anew, and at last Melkor brushed all gentleness aside, prodding knuckle-deep inside him, finding his rhythm: leaving Mairon smiling and savage, jolted into the wall. A curse ruptured from the Maia as Melkor re-angled his fingers the barest inch or so, just enough to make lights scatter in a cobweb behind his eyelids. He could feel his master's smirk pressed to the top of his head, and the next twist of his fingers was more firm, his arm round his waist felt less slack. Mairon lifted his own hand to clutch at Melkor's arm curled there so possessively. With each pass of those charred fingers Mairon's teeth bloodied his lower lip further, he squeezed his eyes shut all the tighter: letting himself be rocked by the movement, grinding his forehead into the wall.

And then the arm around his waist was gone, and the slide and fold of fabric whispered behind him. Melkor held the pressure against his prostate even as he parted his robes, and Mairon crumbled his mewl across the stone; he bucked his hips backward into the touch, closing a loose fist around his own length, toying with the wetness smudged over his tip.

The pressure within him diminished, then slithered away entirely, and through a staccato of panting breaths Mairon found the air to whine. Swiftly, but not unkindly, Melkor shushed him, positioning himself behind him, slick with oil from some secret vessel. Mairon braced a forearm against the wall in preparation for the wrenching contact that was to come. The hand around his own length clenched into a squeeze almost to the point of pain as Melkor breached him. Desperately he set a twisting, steady rhythm to take the edge off the burn and the fullness of his master pressing into him. Melkor's hand reached around, engulfing Mairon's own, coaxing him into a less forgiving pace. Over and over Melkor slammed into him, and though his body shrieked and shuddered in the wake of battle, with wild joy Mairon met each of his thrusts.

Even if he had wanted to prevent his climax, he did not have the chance to. It crashed into him much as a wave might, full-bodied and devastating: he came with a choked-off shout, the sound distorted by the wall, lips scraping open and bloody over the stone. For shivering seconds he rolled his hips back into his master, and even then Melkor did not pause for softness, not when Mairon slumped into the wall, not when he bowed his head, heavy-lunged and sated. It was not long until Melkor tipped past his own peak, buried to the hilt inside his lieutenant, crushing a frown into his shoulder.

''There,'' he purred when breath seemed a little less scant in their lungs. He lingered, keeping his hips flush against Mairon's: a hand was lazily meandering up the Maia's side, nudging beneath his tunic to flesh warm and slick with sweat, with the bloody remnants of war. ''Let it never be said that I am not a generous lord.''

A smile twitched over Mairon's lips. He could still faintly taste the blood knocked across his teeth. Exhilarating. Churning. He did not know whether or not it was his own.


End file.
